Edmunds County Tribune -

Led by Aleah Steger's course-record-setting clocking at the Lake Region Conference cross country meet at Split Rock Country Club in Ipswich last Wednesday, the IHS Lady Tigers cruised to a 10-point 9 to 19 team win over their nearest competitor Aberdeen Christian in less than optimal weather conditions.

Steger's amazing 18:36.37 clocking indeed topped the previous record-holder IHS graduate Macy Heinz, now at USD, by some 14 seconds. "Aleah sure had a good run," said IHS coach Todd Thorson. "She averaged 6:03 a mile and her best ever was 6:12."

But she got plenty of help from her friends! Teammate Tessa Kilber finished second in 19:43.86, while the third scorer for the Lady Tigers was Emily DeRaad clocked in 21:23.56, good for seventh among the 16 girls' varsity contestants. Ipswich also received a ninth-place finish from Kari Kanable in 21:39.03 and Ashley Ptacek was tenth in 21:51.33, closely followed by Abby Olson, 21:53.36.

Northwestern finished third in the girls' team outcome with 21 points, behind Ipswich and Aberdeen Christian, respectively. Those were the only three girls' teams with the minimum three runners for team-scoring purposes.

But that was certainly not the case in the varsity boys' team chase. There were 24 individual boys' contestants, led by Michael Worth of Warner in 17:05.77 and his teammate Cody Larson in second at 17:13.19. And they ran together as a pair pretty much the entire race, despite worsening weather conditions as the race developed. Their third runner was Ben Wirth in tenth at 18:49.41. That gave the Monarchs 13 team points for the boys' title, edging runner-up Northwestern's 19. Faulkton, meanwhile, placed third in the boys' team chase with 26 points, while the Tiger boys placed fourth with a 31. Aberdeen Christian was the final boys' team placer, in fifth at 45 among five eligible teams.

Ipswich's boys' effort was keyed by Ben Kulesa in eighth at 18:23.73, followed by Maxwell Geditz in 11th at 19:21.79. Their third scorer was Evan Onken, placing 12th in 19:40.84. Next was Taylor Thorson, 13th in 19:45.41 and Dylan Owens in 15th at 19:52.95.

Maxwell Geditz was at the front of a line of cross country runners in the meet at the Split Rock Country Club on Oct. 3. Ben Kulesa, who eventually finished in front of Geditz, was right behind him in this photo.

Additional runners braved the weather condtions during their respective junior varsity and middle-school LRC races.

In the girls' 4K JV event, the Lady Tigers' own Chloe Jager finished first among seven runners at 19:20.05. And IHS teammate Lily Gaston was second in 19:51.59, while Makala DeRaad placed sixth in 21:46.66. There were nine LRC boys entered into their 3K event, won by Ipswich's Turner Thorson in 11:55.53.

Fourteen middle-school girls signed up for their 2,000-yard run and Ipswich was represented by Kaylin Onken in seventh in 9:13, Sommer DeRaad in eighth at 9:14 and Savannah Coisman, 12th in 10:28. Meanwhile, the M-S boys' race consisted of 11 runners, including a pair of Tiger entrants, Dylan Wald in second at 8:40 and Xavier Kadlec in fourth at 8:42.

The varsity teams will next be attending the Region 4B meet later today, Wednesday, Oct. 10 in Gettysburg. It starts at 1 p.m.